Last updated: July 2026
A sales role that has been open for 90 days is talking to the market whether you want it to or not. Candidates see the ad go up, see it expire, see it go up again with the same wording. In a niche where the real candidate pool for a given role is often 30 to 50 people nationally, most of the people you want have noticed. Part of my week is scanning advertised roles in this industry, and re-advertised roles get flagged, by me and by every candidate who half-remembers seeing the ad in autumn.
The good news is that a stale search has a small number of causes, all fixable. The bad news is that time alone fixes none of them.
What does a role being open 90 days signal to candidates?
That something behind the ad is stuck, and candidates fill the blank with the least flattering explanation. The common readings: the pay is under market, the manager is hard to work for, the last person left in a hurry, or the company cannot make a decision. Usually the truth is more boring, and it makes no difference, because the candidate acts on the reading rather than the truth.
Strong candidates are cautious movers. Leaving a good role for an unknown one is a risk calculation, and a role that looks stuck raises the perceived risk. So the stale ad quietly filters out exactly the careful, performing candidates you most want, while the people still applying in month four skew towards those with fewer options.
The re-advertising cycle makes it worse. The same ad, reworded slightly, back on Seek for the third time, reads as a company doing the same thing and hoping. I wrote in The Harsh Truth About Job Ads about how thin a slice of the market an ad reaches on its best day. On its third posting it reaches a thinner slice with a worse impression.
Why do sales roles in building products stay open past 90 days?
Four causes account for nearly every stale search I see: the package, the brief, the process, and the search model. Most stuck roles have at least two running at once.
The package is under market. The most common cause and the least discussed. A base pitched 15 per cent under market extends a search by 8 to 12 weeks in my experience, because the search runs, the right candidates decline quietly, and eventually the number moves anyway. The correction just happens after three months of lost time instead of before the search starts. Where packages currently sit is in the salary guide.
The brief describes a role that does not exist. A "Spec Manager" title on BDM duties, a "State Manager" with no reports, a hybrid spec-and-hunt role that one salary cannot cover. Candidates interview, discover the mismatch, and withdraw. The role gets a reputation for burning interviews.
The process is too slow for the market. Three weeks between first and second interviews loses candidates in this market as reliably as anything on this list. Sales candidates are usually interviewing in more than one process, and the fastest credible offer wins far more often than hiring managers like to believe.
The search model does not match the role. A scarce senior profile run as a multi-agency contingent race, or a niche technical role advertised and waited on. The search keeps sampling the active market while the right candidates sit passive and uncontacted. That gap is the subject of The Best Candidate for Your Role Never Applied.
What does an empty sales territory cost while you search?
More than the recruitment fee you are trying to save, in almost every case. An empty territory means calls not made, specifications not defended, and relationships cooling at exactly the pace your competitors' reps are warming them. Projects that would have been specified in month two get specified by someone else, and spec-based revenue has a long tail, so the loss keeps arriving for a year or more after the seat is filled.
Then there is the pressure effect. Month four of an empty territory is where hiring standards drop and the "good enough, available now" hire happens. A bad hire on a $120,000 to $140,000 base typically costs $150,000 to $300,000 all-in, which means the stale search and the panic hire it produces can cost more together than the entire first-year package of the right candidate. The Cost of a Bad Hire Calculator will put your own numbers on that.
What do candidates hear during a long search?
Decline reasons travel, and after 90 days you have accumulated a set of them. This is the intelligence most stale searches throw away.
Every strong candidate who looked at the role and passed had a reason. Base too low. Territory churned through two reps. Heard the manager runs a tight leash. Some reasons are wrong and fixable with information. Some are right and fixable with money or structure. Either way, the decline reasons are a diagnostic reading of your role as the market sees it, and a search that cannot tell you why people said no is running blind. When I run a search, declines and their reasons go back to the client as a matter of course, because a pattern in the declines usually points straight at the fix.
How do you reset a role that has gone stale?
Change something visible, because relaunching the same ad confirms every suspicion the market already has. A reset that works usually involves three moves.
First, rediagnose with the decline data you have. If three good candidates raised the base, the base is the problem. If interviews keep dying at stage two, look at the stage, the interviewer, or the gap between stages.
Second, fix the identified problem before going back out. Adjust the package, rewrite the brief around the real role, compress the process to two stages with dates held in diaries.
Third, change the search method. If 90 days of advertising found nobody, the next 90 days of advertising will find nobody. The candidates who can do the role exist, and they are employed and not reading Seek. Someone has to approach them directly with a role that has had its problems fixed. Whether that is you or a specialist, the recruiter versus generalist comparison covers how to choose help if you want it.
In a market this size, a stuck role usually means the role, as currently priced, scoped, and searched, has been declined. Fix what was declined and the same market answers differently.
Frequently asked questions
Is 90 days a long time for a sales role to be open?
In building products sales, yes. Standard BDM and rep roles at market packages typically fill well inside that window. Senior and scarce specification roles can legitimately run 12 to 16 weeks, and past that point the search itself starts damaging the role's reputation with the exact candidates it needs.
What do candidates think when they see a job re-advertised?
Usually that the pay is under market, the manager is difficult, or the company cannot decide. Candidates act on that reading whatever the truth is. Strong, currently employed candidates are the most cautious and are filtered out first.
Why is nobody applying to my sales job ad?
The likely candidates are employed and either did not see the ad or saw a package, title, or history that told them to pass. Ads reach the active slice of the market, and after multiple postings they reach a smaller slice with a worse impression each time.
Should I lower my standards to fill a role that has been open a long time?
Fix the search before touching the standard. Month-four pressure produces "available now" hires, and a mis-hire on a $120,000 to $140,000 base typically costs $150,000 to $300,000. Rediagnose from decline reasons, correct the package or brief or process, then search the passive market properly.
How do I find out why candidates are declining my role?
Ask whoever runs your search for decline reasons on every strong candidate approached, with names where candidates permit it. A search that cannot produce any decline reasons never reached the passive market, and the ad response pile contains no intelligence about the people who never applied.